Freeroll
tournaments are the most popular games available at most online poker sites. To see this for yourself
simply check the number of registrations for freerolls compared to the tournaments with real-money buy-ins.
Freerolls come in several forms, some are truly free with no entry requirements other than an account at
a particular site. Others cost "points" to enter or have entries awarded for certain actions –
for example making a deposit. What these freeroll tournaments have in common is that they award
real money cash prizes for the winners, for no monetary outlay.
The main characteristic of freeroll tournaments is that the prizes are usually very low compared to the number of entrants. It is common to see many thousands of players competing for a first prize of just $50 with less than a dollar given to the first "in the money finishers". From this we can deduce that the average freeroll entrant is more interested in gaining experience and having fun than they are about the cash prize. Sure, $50 would be welcome, but the challenge of the tournament is the more important aspect.
Looking at the level of play in the average freeroll tournament gives us a further insight into the players. The standard of play highlights that these players are not poker experts, more like gamblers who are willing to take any 2 cards all the way to the river! In order to have a chance of finishing in the money in freeroll tournaments you would need to navigate a minefield. Players whose bets, calls and raises do not make sense in relation to their hand and others prepared to get all-in with the smallest piece of the flop.
Certain freerolls have large prize pools and are used to reward regular players at a specific poker site. These range from $1000 to upwards of $20,000 depending on the site. Again the fields are large and again the play is often loose and wild. The difference here is that there are usually a certain percentage of the field who take the game more seriously. The kind of freeroller who would play to win these games is the player with a smaller bankroll who has earned enough points to enter and sees this as a great pportunity to give their bankroll a boost.
A final type of freeroller is known as the "freeroll whore". These are players who go out of their way to get passwords to online freeroll tournaments and will sign-up to new sites specifically with the intention of playing freerolls to win the prizes available. These players take the games a little more seriously, they are often young enough not to be able to make their own deposits on poker sites, seeing freerolls as a chance to get a starting bankroll which they later hope to grow in the real money tournaments.
To summarize, freeroll tournaments are poker games which offer cash prizes for no monetary outlay. These can be completely free or involve points collection or other pre-requisites for entry. The average entrant is not skilled in poker strategy and playing for leisure and a challenge as much as for the cash. Some players, including those with limited bankrolls and "freeroll whores" take these games more seriously and may actively seek them out on the internet.